Unwritten Words of The Voiceless
by Ngoc Chau
Summary: The writer of Species, Red, and Nocturnal Emissions. Christopher tells his tale of the mute woman to his planet, but how did she feel in meeting the prawn; what were her thoughts in it all? Here are her words. Takes place between chap 1-4 of Species. C/OC


**Ngoc Chau does not own District 9.**

**So, this is from Fumnanya's view from when she first met Christopher to when she had to leave him in chapter 4 of Species. **

**Because she's mute, it's hard to really let her be expressive so I have to really downplay what she wants to get through and I have to let Christopher be intuitive. To answer questions; she is indeed mute. It's not because she hates humanity or something, it's just because her vocal chords are messed up and she can barely make a clear articulated sound that could be interpretated. She knows sign language and morse code. The reason why I made her mute is to give her a characteristic that sets her apart from everybody. I want her to be flawed, but at the same time to have something that sort of improves her. So yeah.... **

**On with the fanfic!**

* * *

She didn't know why she woke up that day.  
It was just a craving to wake up and leave her small apartment home. Her tired eyes blinked and slowly adusted to the dim lights from her scratchy curtains. Fumnanya wanted nothing more than to finish her sleep and get up at 6 like she always did. But something in her gut just screamed at her, "_Get up! Get up, you lazy head! Get up!"  
_With the little voice pounding at her skull and refusing to let her dream for a few more hours, she flipped the patterened mossy green wool comforter off of her and sat up from the squeaky spring bed.

The room was dark, with barely any lights anywhere, yet there seemed to have an orange glow everywhere. In the room, the small spring bed was right in the center against a bare wall that had not even a picture on it. There was a small closet that was filled with sweaters and jackets and an adequate brown cupboard with skirts, dresses, and slacks. On the small cupboard rested an old-fashioned boom box radio that could play both 8 tracks and CDs. However, she had only 4 eight track tapes and 5 CDs; 3 of which were given to her by the street artists advertising their music by the grocery and conviennence store where she worked.

She sighed out loud and then yawned; the stretching of her jaws rumbling in her own ears. She got off the springy bed and walked to the single window of her apartment room and slowly brushed back the curtains. She squinted her eyes at the bright harshness of the afternoon light. It was honestly too early to get up. She wouldn't have to get up until 6 in the evening at least and it was only 2 in the afternoon.  
Fumnanya opened the square window and felt the humid air blow into her dark room. It felt nice on her heated skin. The apartment didn't have that great a ventilation or insulation. If the weather was hot outside, the apartment was hot. If the weather was cold outside, the room grew chillier. She closed her eyes and smiled at the gentle wind kissing her warm skin. It had been so long since she was in the sun-light. The sounds of children laughing outdoors and honking cars charged at her ears but she let the sounds bombard her. She never really liked noise. Abeni -or rather, Fumnanya, as she called herself- wondered why she didn't live farther away from the town; she liked peace and quiet, she was more used to it.

Having enough of the fresh air and noise, she closed the window and locked it. She then left the small bedroom, her sticky feet peeling off of the tiled ground. The small 3 room apartment was dark and sombre with curtains everywhere. It was hard to sleep with the sun shining in and it was hard to stay calm in the night with the darkness taunting her imagined safety. She just stepped out of the doorway and took another step to her left and she was in the small bathroom.  
The bathroom was unusually white with a sink, a toilet, and a small shower stall that only had enough room to go in and then get out.

She looked in the mirror; her black hair was twisted with long curly locks that ran from her scalp and disappeared into another. But with the small thick curls close to her face rising from her hairline and covering about half her face, the white of her eyes glowed eerily from behind. She brushed the hair back with a hand and the sweeping motion of her hair tickled the sides of her neck. She shook her head around with the locks stretching, only then to compress back into the springy shape. For the moment, her hair was clear out of her dark face and she quickly took the time to brush her teeth. If there was one thing she hated when waking up, it was the taste of hair in her mouth; the choking strings going to the back of her throat and sinking into the tiny little bumps of her pink tongue.

As she brushed her teeth, she tried to decide what she would do to kill the time until her work starts at 9. She could go to the park, but her bike was broken and needed a new tire and she couldn't buy a new one until she got her paycheck in 2 weeks. She could go for a walk, but that would only be good for about an hour or so; what would she do with all that time left?  
She couldn't go shopping, it would be too strange for someone like her to walk in and out of stores with no real aim and they would probably chase her out as soon as she stepped in. Then the thought of the library came to her. She could go there; it was a place with a comfy sofa and books and cds. She had gone and spent an entire day there once when she was younger and literature still interested her. She decided that she would spend her time in the library reading or listening to the free music they had there.

Fumnanya spat out the mouthful of foamy bubbly toothpaste and grabbed to washcloth hanging on the side of the sink to wash her face. She blinked a few times to get the drops of water hanging off her eyelashes like raindrops and returned to her room to change out of her pjs. As she piveted out of the doorway back into her room, the head of the over-sized, over-stretched white shirt she wore as sleepware was caught on her bushy hair. She pulled it off and silently made a face when she realized she had also pulled out a few locks of that bushy mop.

After putting on a bandana to hold that wild hair of hers back and the red t-shirt that was the store uniform with a pair of navy jeans, she stepped out of her small apartment. The door out was at a sort of deck with other doors around outside. She was about to take the first step downstairs, but stopped, her foot floating in the air. She yawned a tired yawn and rubbed her big eyes to get the exhaustion out.

It really was so bright, so yellow, so blinding. The humming of the muscles of her jaws stretched next to her eardrums and even when she finished yawning again, the humming remained. She looked up to the sky that housed a large contraption that still had not been able to block out the sun itself.  
The mother-ship.  
The sound of it floating and humming was like tens of thousands of bugs buzzing and calling in your ears; the feeling was like having itchy cotten stuffed in your ears, but whatever you did, you couldn't get rid of it. She squinted her eyes looking at it. All her life it had always been there, she couldn't exactly remember a time when it wasn't there hovering above the city. It just seemed that it had always been constant in her life. The round grey saucer that looked like it already had a city built upon it floated above everything. She had always wondered how it could stay up there without flying away to space. To her, it was a symbol of fear. Because of the prawns it had brought. She had never actually seen one in real life, not right in front of her.  
There were a few times when one of the prawns had escaped from their homes and entered the city in broad daylight, a red alert had been called by the MNU, and she had always made sure the doors were locked and went back to sleep. Then she had heard them and caught short glimpses of speeding prawns, but never had the chance to stand in front of one long enough to study it. Still, she was afraid of them; she had seen the news and read the newspapers showing them turning giant trains on their sides and creating bombs to detonate around crowded areas. Even once, she had heard of a rapist prawn kidnapping a few of the woman and even men around the city. She was glad that they weren't around the city that frequently; she didn't know what she would do if they were completely mingled with everybody, it would be too frightening.

Her black hand covered over her eyes as a sort of shade as she walked down the stoney stairs of the apartment. It really was too bright.

* * *

It had happened too quick for her to really recall what had happened.

She had just been walking down the streets, deciding to walk to the library for good excercise and time instead of taking the bus. This young woman had just passed by a small McDonalds at the corner of a street when she felt hands grabbing at her out of nowhere and dragging her away from the public's view. Only a small square of bright lights and green and blue was what she saw until the space of darkness all around her overshadowed the picture of the city. She recognized them to be gang members who hung out in the prawn slums. At her work, she had seen them strut out onto the streets in the darkness like they were kings and holler like wolves. She of course had felt safe in her work because the store manager had equipped his shop with bars on the windows, a silent alarm straight to the police, security cameras, and a large shot-gun behind the counter where each employee stood.  
She had known them from long ago somewhere -a dark splotch on her past, but she had lived through and past that.  
The gang members was one of the reasons why she moved into the heart of Johannesburg; she couldn't possibly have imagined that they would've attacked her in the mid-day. But of course, she was mute and it would be like taking candy from a baby.

Fumnanya tried to beat at them but 3 against 1 was too unfair. She opened her mouth wide to scream but the only sounds that came out was a rough scratchy hoarseness. She damned fate for making her handicap a true downside for her at the moment. She couldn't tell their faces apart, the sun had burned their skin too much and they looked like monsters with wide gaping eyes and pink puckered fish lips that were too big for their faces. They touched her everywhere and she never felt more violated in her life; the squeezing touches were trying and stinging. They dragged her kicking form over to a heavily shielded jeep that they had with blackened windows and stuffed her in there. She was about to run away when they grabbed her neck and held a gun to her temple. She could feel that it was warm and assumed it was better to think of it loaded than if they were bluffing. She didn't want to find out the hard way. They were mumbling, well 'mumbling' was the only way she could describe their speech; their long elastic mouths stretched and their words drawled together. She still understood what they meant; they were going to take her to their boss but not before having a taste of her themselves first.  
Men were stupid; they wanted what they knew they couldn't have unless they stole it away.

They were driving for 15 minutes when one of them shouted out that they shouldn't wait to go into District 9 to fuck her. It would be too unsafe to have sex with someone right in the car when prawns were crawling everywhere and another one of the gang leader's boys or whores would catch the 3 of them fucking her and they would tell him what they had done. He would cut off their balls and eat it himself,just like he did with the prawns.  
They pulled away from the path to District 9 to some unknown place where people rarely went to and it was safe from MNU or police or cameras. She could imagine such a hostile place but couldn't place where they were.

One of them stayed in the car, still holding the gun to her forehead while the other 2 walked out and started unzipping their low hanging jeans. No, she wouldn't let them do that to her. Fumnanya swore to herself that she would never let such a thing happen to her and she would never let another man take advantage of her. She silently prayed for someone to come save her. She turned up to look for an sign of help, but instead she saw the wily faces grinning like felt like someone had sliced through her stomach and all her guts were pouring out like a river of death. No one was coming and if she wanted to be safe, she would have to take it into her own hands.

She was silent, but she could be violent as well.

They pulled on her bushy hair and forced her to the ground out of the car. It was likely they weren't content with taking turns with her and wanted a go at her all at once. She had to think carefully, or else it would result in her having a hole blown through her head. All 3 men -1 was still holding the gun- stood over her like giants. Their little penises and tips were standing erect from the zipper of their pants.  
"Lie down." they ordered her.

She hesitated, trying to think up what to do to get out of this.

An idea came to her. She mustered up the best seductive look she could and licked her lips sensually with her tongue just peeking from behind her mouth; making a small round shape. They chuckled at her and one of them stepped forward, grabbing her by her hair again and forcing her head to his penis. She opened her mouth but didn't dare to swallow it, instead she cradled his balls with her hands and gave small licks. Anything went when you were desperate. She had to time her plan carefully, if it didn't work out like how she was planning, she was done for. Without even looking up from the disgusting hand-job, she could hear the gravel shift as the other 2 moved around her. One moved behind her and he placed his hands on her hips while the other came to her right side, fondling her breasts.

Fumnanya looked to her side and saw that the one squeezing her breasts had the gun but he was holding it rather low. If anything, she had to be faster than all of them combined and she had to make sure the gun wouldn't be pointed at her. It was the riskiest thing ever, but if she lived it would be worth it. If she died.... well, she didn't want to think of it that far if it came down to that. She switched to her left hand touching his testicles and arched her back; feigning enjoyment and orgasm. They were laughing at her and pointing out that they were much better than their young war lord could ever esteem to be in touching a woman, especially one they kidnapped against her will. She could feel the heat of their bodies so close and when she quickly too a look at the one holding the gun, she saw that his hand was limp with it in his grip and he even started to slip his hand under her shirt.

When she felt that they were all in the right spot and that they were close enough, she slammed her head down on the man's cock and bit hard.

He screamed, starting the others and her. She immediately sacked the man behind her and her right hand jumped to the man's face and clawed down like a cat. They all screamed and jumped away.

She quickly ran, dropping every few steps but crawling up to her feet and sprinting as fast as she could.

* * *

They were idiots for not taking their car after her and running instead. But she was thankful that they were chasing her on foot instead of driving after her. She didn't know how far she had ran away or for how long, she just wanted to keep running until she was sure they was an officer or something that seemed nice to help her. Her ankles and calves were sore, throbbing with ache and she wanted to twist it off. Her heart thumped against her ribcage and each breath was strangled and she could taste either blood or dirt in her mouth. Her stomach and abdomen did twists and bit into each other as her thighs rubbed and burned. All the clothes she wore felt wetter and heavier.

She ran farther and farther until.... she could see looming shadows overhead of hers. She turned around to just see how close they were and it turned out to be her fatal mistake. They grabbed her feet and shoulders and she fell in a dusty crash onto the ground. She could hear them laughing behind her and she was afraid what was going to happen next. It was probably luck or it was probably her own shitty luck; they started beating her. They kicked her in the ribs and stamped on her feet that she collapsed and shielded her head with her hands to lessen the blows.  
She was tired; she couldn't run anymore and figured that a beating was better than rape. She could hear the sputter of their lips spitting at her. They called her a whore, a bitch, a slut, a mother-fucking lesbien. She gritted her teeth and took their beating. Fumnanya found that she couldn't breathe so well anymore, in fact, she found she couldn't breathe at all. Her mouth would open and close, hoping that air would find its way back into her lungs, but she felt her head spinning and something like nails being dug into the sides of her head.

The beating was brutal.

In the swearing, the kicking, the blurriness of it all and chaos; she heard the sound of someone from far away coming close. She tried to look up but one of the gangsters kicked her head down with something sharp, she guessed it was the heel of his boot or the side of his foot. It was a stupid thought and was a worthless chance, but she still had to take it. Her lips trembled and she bit on her tongue a few times and winced at the pain. She tensed herself up completely and whistled as loud as she could. They started yelling at her louder, but she blew harder until the front of her head felt hot and dizzy.  
Her eyes shot up in an instant and she gasped mentally to herself.

It was a prawn.

It was a wild prawn out of District 9. She was shocked to see it out of the slums. What was it doing here? Was it going to kill all of them to eat their flesh? There was something in the bug-like expression; worry almost? Was it worried that it would get caught? Or perhaps there wasn't enough to kill? it looked vicious with the shreds and rags of red and black wrapped around its body. It was really big too. She was forced to duck her head down again as they beated their fists on the top of her head.  
She had another idea at the top of her head. What if she could speak to it and have it understand her? It was another long shot but the way that everything was going, it couldn't get any more dumb.  
What she could try was to talk to it. They didn't really use any words; most of their dialect consisted of clickings and growls and gurgles. She couldn't imitate the growls or gurgles, but she could do was the clickings with her tongue. She tried to think back how the prawns always spoke to each other. It was funny when she had heard recordings of them, the words had come fluently to her but when she was trying to communicate with them, she couldn't think of any words.

She looked up and heard something on her crack.

Suddenly, she found her entire focus to be on those golden amber eyes of the prawn. Its eyes were like any other prawn -nothing really special- but she felt something more looking at it. There was something in its gaze and colourings of those eyes that almost reassured her it would be alright and it would be okay to reach out to him. There was that little click in her brain and the floodgates of emotions tore its way through her brain. Though she couldn't decide if the feeling was good or bad. It made her feel sickly but a sort of emotion that one would discourage but yearn for after.  
With a trembling jaw, she clicked the roof of her mouth with her tongue and whistled, trying hard to remember the language of the prawns to imitate. _'Help me! Please hurt them. Kill them!'_ she screamed in her mind. She hoped that her message would be accurately relayed to the creature. She hoped it would listen to her and help her.

It almost wavered on its feet, but then swooped the ground with something in its hand. She hoped it was a big bad prawn gun that could make the thugs explode. One of them kicked her especially hard and she gasped, feeling her entire left side collasping on her.

**_Crack!_**

She closed her eyes and the opened them. The 3 of them stood dumbfounded and when she followed their gaze, there was nothing there. One of them started scraming and swearing. She figured something must've happed to him.

"Hey, what's the commotion all about?!" came a strong authoritive voice from behind them.

It was an MNU soldier, she had seen a lot of them before. They had their usual black uniform and helmet that you couldn't really see who was it under there. The thugs around her -2 of them had remainded while 1 was gone somewhere- ran away giving some sort of battle cry, while it really sounded like a wimp cry.  
The soldier stepped closer to her, his gun still held at his side, and asked, "Are you alright, miss?"

She looked up at him and pointed to her mouth, shaking her head.

He lowered his gun and came closer with a hand extended out, "I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay. Can you tell me if they hurt you, miss?"

_'I can't speak; that's how I was born. They hurt me, but there doesn't appear to be anything broken. Tell me where I am. What time is it? It's very hot out here. I want some water.'_ she spoke all that silently with her mouth wording the phrases. She attempted using sign language; her wrists and her fingers maneuvering like some genius at the words.

He asked her with his volume increasing and a hand gesturing at his ears, "Are you deaf?"

She shook her head. Flapping her fingers and thumb together, it looked like a squaking bird. With that hand gesture, she shook her head.

The soldier's mouth opened slightly and it was apperent that he understood what she was saying. "You can't talk?"

She nodded her head.

The soldier nervously asked her, his voice stuttering and wavering, "Do you need to go to the hospital?"

She didn't really understand or knew why he asked her that. She touched her face and found it a little tender, but thuoght that it wasn't hospitable worthy. But as she lowered her hands, she saw festering red cuts and blue bruises growing. _'Goodness!_' she thought to herself, _'If my hands look like this, what does my face look like?'_  
She shook her head, but reconsidered.  
If he was offering to take her to the hospital, he must've had a car or something around there. She held up one finger._ 'Hold on a second'_  
the man couldn't understand sign language -that was obvious already- so she would have to use hand gestures that would be close to interpretation for anybody that was untrained to the language of the deaf and voiceless.  
With hand movements of her index and middle finger walking across an invisiable street as legs then both hands coming to something that looked like a rainbow blosseming, she could see that the soldier was getting confused at what she was doing. _'Can you take me back to the city?_'

"What?" he questioned her.

Fumnanya rolled her eyes and strode right next to him. In large movements with her arm, she spelled out in front of him;

**J**

**O**

**Z**

**I.**

He looked at her a second and then exclaimed, "Oh! You want me to take you into the town, right?"

She nodded.

But his tone sounded sadder in a way and he explained to her, "Sorry. But I still have a job right now. How about this; you come with me to the trucks out there and the shift is over, some of the officers will take you into town. Okay?"

She was hesitant to the idea, but agreed. She still had a lot of time; the only question was how to spend it until she oculd go back into town. The way she looked at it; it would probably be better to hook up with a nice guy -an MNU officer- than get raped and beaten by the dirty Nigerians.

Just before she left with the MNU soldier, she saw a large blood stain where she had been. She quickly ran over there, motioning for the officer to wait a moment for her. Going there, she saw that in the middle of the blood pool was a large sharp stone. She picked it up. It was warm and cold at the same time and stunk of garbage.  
One thought came to her head; _'It saved me.'_  
Although the soldier had come and chased them off, it was the prawn who had thrown the stone to save her. She suddenly remembered it; the black and red colour on it and the green shell.

If she knew anything, she would have to thank it.

That was karma.

* * *

**Please review.**

**So that was Fumnanya of Species. You have a second view of her. Although I'm probably going to write another 1 or 2 more chapters to this and then it'll be complete. This is supposed to be a fanfic of Fumnanya's from what she thought of meeting Christopher for the first time.**


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